


Last First Kiss (I Wanna Be Yours)

by Coraleeveritas



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Lots of backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 20:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12283932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coraleeveritas/pseuds/Coraleeveritas
Summary: Brienne knew they were well past the perfect age to be playing the games her former college roommate was suggesting, but there was something remarkably freeing in taking a step back to the years they'd spent nestled under the umbrella of higher education, setting aside the responsibilities that kept her working until the small hours of the morning, if only for a little while. Much like the unneeded reunion itself, she probably wouldn't have been able to do much to talk Margaery out of 'spin the bottle' anyway. And really, how much harm could come from a few questions between friends?





	Last First Kiss (I Wanna Be Yours)

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic that doesn't necessarily fit the theme of today, but a story that came to me quite quickly and I wanted to save it for appreciation week anyway. 
> 
> Song title is from Inevitable by Anberlin and anything you recognise doesn't belong to me.
> 
> Thank you to RoseHeart, as always, for her wonderful support and friendship. This fandom brought us together several years ago and this week she is actually staying with me as I show her around my city :)

Brienne knew they were well past the perfect age to be playing the games her former college roommate was suggesting, but there was something remarkably freeing in taking a step back to the years they'd spent nestled under the umbrella of higher education, setting aside the responsibilities that kept her working until the small hours of the morning, if only for a little while. Much like the unneeded reunion itself, she probably wouldn't have been able to do much to talk Margaery out of 'spin the bottle' anyway. And really, how much harm could come from a few questions between friends?

So, after spending an hour discussing recent developments in her orthopaedics residency, she then fell into well practiced, vaguely flirtatious and highly argumentative habits with Jaime Lannister, the arrogant, yet strangely charming, golden demigod who she'd often butted heads with when they were both freshman only to develop a massive, unrequited, crush on him after he'd moved in next door the following year. The surge of memories and hidden feelings left Brienne with only enough energy to roll her eyes as her friend called the room to order with a mischievous smile.

Brienne knew that smile. She remembered when it promised that a small, end of semester party wouldn't spread to the second floor of their house and disturb her quiet plans. It had only taken an hour before Tyrion, Jaime's brother, found her trying to extricate her coat from the ground floor closet, having decided to spend her evening in the library and simply record her favourite show to watch at a later date. Laughing about how much they had in common, Tyrion only had to send one text before she was comfortably seated on Jaime's couch with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, surround sound speakers supporting the widescreen tv for what turned into her best viewing experience yet. By the time they'd finished their heated argument about the princesses, knights and courtly love, it was nearly midnight and Margaery's party was slowly starting to wind down. Jaime barely hesitated before asking her back the next week for much of the same give and take and they slipped into a new routine. It ended up being one of two main turning points in their friendship, the other coming in the middle of a late September thunderstorm, secrets spilling as quickly as the rain was falling to soak them both to the skin.

Brienne hadn't forgotten how disappointed she'd been when the show was cancelled during their senior year, cutting her weekly time with Jaime down to morning workouts and the occasional afternoon study session. She would always want for more episodes, more runs, more classes, but time was running out for their odd friendship before graduation would split them apart for good, Brienne being offered a place in the highly sought after Winterfell medical school programme and Jaime being pulled home to work at his father's bank in Lannisport. She knew she loved him by that point, their friendship bolstered by trust and respect and easy affection, but accepted that he could never return her feelings. For that reason, she thought it was better that life would take them in separate directions, conversing only through Winterfest cards and Mockingbird messages whenever someone in their group had news to celebrate. It was better than staying close enough to watch him eventually fall for any of the many beautiful women his brother kept pushing his way.

Once in Winterfell she buried herself in a mountain of textbooks and refused to surface until she'd finished her pre-clinical exams, surprised to find that as she was learning the finer features of the endocrine system Jaime was sending her weekly updates from the vaults beneath the bank. It was as if the distance between them disappeared, Brienne even finding it somewhat easier to talk to him from the safety of her keyboard, and other than having to decipher some interesting spelling choices, she began to feel far less isolated all alone in the frozen north. But when the chance came to return to Kings Landing to complete her residency alongside the brilliant Drs Martell and Sand, Brienne did so with no expectation of anything happening between herself and the newly appointment manager of the capital's biggest LBC branch.

Jaime met her off the train with coffee, an offer of his spare room should she get bored with hospital housing until her apartment was ready, and the biggest smile she'd ever seen on a non-animated creature. He took her out for lunch and it was almost like nothing had changed, save for finding new things to playfully disagree about. But that had been over a year ago and she sometimes considered that moving day, for all its stresses and strains, the last time they'd both been truly happy together.

Margaery's reunion was supposed to change things for the better. With rounds and a bank expansion programme and unreliable shift patterns for both, Brienne didn't see Jaime again after that day in the station until he was rolled into the emergency room some months later, bruised and broken, the bandages wrapped around his right hand no barrier to the blood that had already soaked all the way through. Whether he was fully conscious or not, he had recognised her voice as soon as the interns were deployed to help, surrounding the gurney and shouting out vitals. She'd had to vehemently disregard his slurred statements that if she was any kind of friend she would just let him die. He knew she couldn't do that, that she'd sworn an oath to do no harm, and had even teased her on occasion about it, but the shock and pain had temporarily overridden his usual jovial nature.

She wasn't allowed in the operating theatre that day. Dr Sand had taken one look at the unfolding situation and banished Brienne to lab runs and suture checks until the end of her shift. She calmed herself knowing that Jaime was in the best possible hands and that her own blossoming talents were better directed elsewhere. By the time Tyrion turned up at midnight, the unshed tears in his eyes matching the ones shining in hers, she was exhausted beyond words, grateful that he only wanted to sit in perfect silence alongside Brienne until Jaime had been transferred to intensive care. Neither of them found any rest before he surfaced from the anaesthetic.

"Go on, I need to update a million family members on his condition so you might as well go in," Tyrion had encouraged after the nurse gave them permission to enter.

Family first, Dr Stark's motto echoed in her head, constantly reminding her that family, duty and honour would never just be words on an old shield in a museum.

"He doesn't need to see me right now," she justified. "He needs something familiar."

"Familiar? Now tell me, Brienne, if you had more time or more experience or whatever it is that you think is holding you back, that he wouldn't be the most familiar thing in your life."

"It's not like that. I don't-"

"Love him?"

She told herself the heat of Tyrion's hard stare was what made her blush as she fought for a defence. "He's one of my best friends."

"That, I wasn't trying to dispute," Tyrion said with a shake of his head, the sudden, insistent vibration of the phone in his lap cutting off whatever further advice he had. "I'll see you in there. Father doesn't like to be kept waiting."

She had been proved right only seconds later. Jaime didn't want to see her but, then again, he hadn't wanted to see anyone, not even his brother or any member of the nursing team who tried to keep him comfortable with daily doses of pain medication. Brienne thought she knew him better than almost anyone, but that seemed to mean next to nothing when faced with Jaime's stubborn refusals to accept help. It was a frustrating affair to visit each day only to end up in an explosive argument about the importance of showers or breakfast that disturbed the rest of the patients in the unit. However, he generally managed to belligerently finish the cooling food left in front of them before she left for morning rounds. They were small victories but ones she nonetheless clung to in the hope that they were a sign of things to come.

After another few weeks of complaints, though, the Lannister family surgeon had decided him well enough to be moved to a private room in another wing of the hospital, with a small army of caregivers marching through the wards four times a day like clockwork. On the orders of his father, all unnecessary visits were to be cut down to once a week, but with the patriarch not present enough to know how important Brienne's role had been in his son's recovery so far, it fell on the charge nurse to overrule the decree after Jaime started to negotiate his own terms. He finally agreed to take a bath, for one, though how Brienne ended up in the tub with him that particular Sunday afternoon, she still wasn't sure. The love she felt for him that had been put on the back burner for the good of her career, their friendship, and his recovery, came roaring back to life as secrets were shared and promises made that living, and living well, would be the greatest revenge against the men who had deliberately ran him off the road. So, Jaime went to physiotherapy appointments if it meant Tyrion and his driver could take him, had no problems with breakfast as long as Brienne brought good coffee, and continued to work harder each time his cousins were allowed to stay a little longer after official visiting hours were done. She realised quite early on he was playing them all, knowing he lied almost as badly as she did. But even if she wasn't spending upwards of seventy hours a week in the place, Brienne would have understood how lonely a hospital could be.

He fought to walk out on his own when the discharge papers came through a month later, despite knowing she would never ignore protocol, seeming to enjoy the battle more than the outcome for the first time in a long time. Before they disappeared back into a world of privilege and prosperity, Tyrion made her promise to come round for dinner whenever she had an evening to spare, winking on his way out when he mentioned Casterly House had some excellent places to talk. And now she was sitting on the living room floor between a pair of Tyrell cousins, directly across from Jaime, not knowing if it'd be worse for the second stop of the spinning champagne bottle to link them together or if the game would ask him to step into the coat closet with one of her old friends. If she hadn't refused the glass of hippocras at the door, Brienne would have sworn that the way Tyrion and Margaery were exchanging grins was just her imagination playing tricks.

Two minutes later and she couldn't believe she was being guided into the coat closet under the stairs with Jaime like they were being led, fully clothed, to a historical bedding.

"Well isn't this typical?" she grumbled, awkwardly folding her arms across her traitorous heart, threatening to jump out of her chest, and glaring in the direction of Margaery's muffled, giddy giggles.

"I wouldn't put too much belief in luck or coincidence right now. Can you rig a spinning bottle?" Jaime asked as he shuffled forward until he was suddenly much too close for comfort, his hands searching behind her for a light switch.

"I-I don't know," she swallowed, blinking rapidly as the darkness disappeared in a blinding flash. "But if anyone knew how, it would be Margaery."

Jaime laughed, a low rumble of noise that seemed to fill the small space. "I never did understand how you two became friends, you seem so-"

"Different?" Brienne interrupted, surprising even herself at how sharp and bitter the word sounded. "I used to think everything she did was out of pity, you know, as I wasn't smart or funny or pretty like the rest of the girls in our class."

"That may be, though I still don't really know any of them well enough to comment. I mean, the Mormont girls used to be fun to talk sports with but Tyrells, Westerlings and Freys all become interchangeable after a while." His reply was smooth, holding the scarred fingers of his right hand up before disregarding each of her disparaging remarks. "You, on the other hand, did get into the most competitive med school programme in Westeros, ergo smart. When you're with people you like you can be fun, if not funny. And...And you do have astonishing eyes."

"I-I do?"

Jaime nodded. "You don't listen as well as you could and there's that whole obsession with honour and duty that must get in the way, but that can be worked on."

"Thanks," Brienne huffed. "In the way of what exactly?"

"Life. Love. A future outside of scrubs and broken bones."

"This isn't Aemon's Anatomy! I'm a surgical intern, Jaime. Most days I barely have enough time to brush my hair."

"You had time to come and see me when I was locked in there. Every day."

"That was different."

"Different?" His smile mimicked the same tense grimace he usually saved for meetings with his father, any underlying amusement entirely absent from his deep green eyes. "I can't see how. Why don't you enlighten me?"

"That oath you pretend isn't important meant we couldn't let you waste away in that hospital bed without trying," she hissed, taking care to enunciate each syllable. "It's not every day we have someone so young and vibrant want to give up after an accident like yours. Doing nothing felt like killing you slowly, day by day."

"Thank you, Dr. Tarth, for that wonderful explanation about doing no harm. Now, how about an answer from Brienne."

"That was the only answer there is."

"Okay," he drawled, looking her up and down. "If that's all it was, we can spend the next four minutes talking about our favourite party snacks. Just...your chin's wobbling the way it does when you're hiding something important and Tyrion's been acting weird whenever I talk about you."

She blinked. "He has?"

"Every day," he shrugged as if it was casual thing. "What aren't you two telling me, Brienne?"

"Every day? You talk about me every day?"

"Is there an echo in here?" he raised an eyebrow, aiming his next question sarcastically at the ceiling. "Do you by any chance know what she won't tell me?"

She took a breath, snapping at herself as much as him. "Seven Hells, Jaime, I made time to see you because I love you!"

"You don't think I wouldn't have done the same thing if our places had been reversed?" he replied just as ferociously, seeming more taken aback by her raised voice than the emotion behind the declaration. "Even if we don't see each other for months, it doesn't mean we stop being best friends."

"No, that's not..." Brienne sighed, trailing off as she caught sight of him toeing the fraying edge of the ostentatiously patterned red and gold carpet, his lower lip firmly wedged between his teeth in a way that made her stomach take a swirling dive to her knees. "What?"

"So all those tests didn't show that I have some incurable disease that you're all too afraid to mention?"

It all made sense now and she cursed herself for not realising his panic was more than his injury, but his fear. "Oh gods, no. We've had enough blood and run enough tests to know you're perfectly healthy. Why in the world did you think otherwise?"

"You, and especially Tyrion, were being too nice."

"If you think that was nice, I'd hate to think what you'd say if I was trying to be mean," she smiled, hoping to diffuse the tension that kept creeping up on them, the small space not at all helping things. "I called you a spoilt brat more than once."

"And a few other choice phrases, if I'm remembering correctly," he chuckled in agreement, though it sounded forced. "Pampered princess, cowardly lion, fucking fatalist, still, you brought me sausage sandwiches and overpriced coffee with syrup most mornings."

"You needed the calories since you wouldn't touch the gourmet nonsense your father had shipped in," she shrugged. "And self proclaimed names don't apply. Though, if I'd known how you were feeling maybe I should have added 'hopeless hypochondriac' to that list."

"Hopeless romantic, maybe."

"Really?" she squeaked, her heart beginning to pound with the very possible idea that he had finally found someone that accepted, and loved, him just as he was while she'd spent too long hovering and worrying just out of reach. It would be her own fault for not speaking up but that didn't seem to make it hurt any less. "I would have never known. It doesn't seem to working out that well for you."

"I don't know," he said, cocking his head as if that would allow him to see through the years of protective armour she'd carefully built around herself. "I'm locked in a tiny closet with a woman I adore who might let me kiss her if I ask very nicely."

She shuffled around so he could reach her cheek, waiting for a chaste peck to graze her freckles as had happened in the past, mistletoe and New Years Eve and formalities asking for such touches. "I suppose we should make some effort, if only for traditions sake."

"Always so dutiful," he sighed, sounding resigned. "Don't you ever get bored doing exactly what everyone else wants you to do?"

"What happens if that's what I want to do, too?"

"Always?"

"Not every single time," she huffed, not wanting to dignify that question with an answer but doing so anyway, if only in the hope that one of her badly thrown barbs would eventually shut him up. "But you can't go through life doing everything your way when your last name isn't Lannister."

"Who knows, my overbearing surname might be able to help you, too," he replied evenly, his lips warm and soft as they pressed and lingered on her burning cheek, forcing Brienne to bite back a shuddering sigh as he pulled away and accidentally brushed against the sensitive corner of her mouth in the process.

"And if we're really friends," he added, staying only inches away and sounding more and more out of breath as he went on. "You've always got the option of talking to me about these things. Hearing is believing and all that."

"Seeing is believing, Jaime," she corrected, though she couldn't deny the catches in his tone were sending a frisson of excitement down her spine, her voice following his into a chasm of murmurs and barely disguised desire.

"You sure about this...that?"

"Positive."

She didn't know who made the final move, although as they were practically on top of each other by then maybe it didn't count as anything other than a much wanted inevitability. His lips were as gently insistent as they'd been on her cheek, encouraging more than demanding, leaving her time to learn how to pour her long buried feelings into each and every increasingly breathless kiss or move her tongue so it curled around his perfectly or know what to do with her hands while her head span and heart pounded.

When they eventually paused, her lungs screaming for air, she just had to look at an awestruck Jaime, all dark eyes, swollen lips and mussed curls, to be pulled back in for a second round, no longer giving any thought to the whos and whats and wherefores that had brought them to make out in a closet.

"Dinner?" she gasped as she felt their next oxygen break ended with him nuzzling down her neck, needing to make an official date now so if he went home with her later she wouldn't think herself too forward. Though it wasn't as if Jaime would ever think such thing. "Saturday?"

"Pentoshi?"

"Yes," she sighed happily, running her fingers down from where they were caressing thick golden waves to cradle his jaw, but, before their lips could touch, the sound of passing voices growing louder made both of them freeze in place.

"How long do we have left?"

Jaime smiled as he reached to bolt the door from the inside, his breath feeling warm against her skin. "As long as we want."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
